X-Force #44

Name: X-Force #44
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Jul 1995 · Marvel · 1.95 USD; 2.75 CAD

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About this Issue

X-Force #44 marks the most sweeping single-issue overhaul in the title's history, arriving in the direct wake of the Age of Apocalypse crossover and replacing the entire creative team — writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Tony Daniel — with Jeph Loeb and Adam Pollina in one fell swoop. Within its pages, Cannonball 'graduates' from X-Force to become a full X-Man, making him the first alumnus of either the New Mutants or X-Force to formally join the senior team. The issue also plants the earliest explicit seeds of the Rictor–Shatterstar emotional dynamic that Loeb was deliberately developing into a coded romance — groundwork that, when finally consummated in X-Factor #45 (2009), resulted in the first same-sex kiss in a mainstream Marvel comic. Its Adam Pollina–drawn cover, a deliberate homage to Uncanny X-Men #138 (via New Mutants #99), stands as part of a recurring X-franchise visual language for marking the departure of a defining character.

writer Jeph Loeb · artist Adam Pollina · inker Mark Farmer · colorist Marie Javins · colorist Electric Crayon · letterer Chris Eliopoulos · cover Adam Pollina, Mark Farmer

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History

After 43 issues under Fabian Nicieza, X-Force went on hiatus for the Age of Apocalypse event in early 1995, ending on a Reignfire/Sunspot cliffhanger that was resolved off-panel; when the book resumed, the editorial decision was made to rebuild it from the ground up. Bob Harras served as editor-in-chief, and the incoming writer Jeph Loeb was already handling the Cable solo title, meaning that by simultaneously taking on X-Force he controlled a significant portion of the entire X-Men publishing line. Adam Pollina debuted as regular penciler on this issue, bringing a graphic, design-forward style that immediately distinguished the book from the Image-influenced look of its predecessor. The story is structured as a letter Cannonball writes to his mother back in Kentucky, a quiet epistolary device that underlines the issue's deliberate tonal shift toward character-driven soap opera over action spectacle.

Trivia · 8 facts

First issue written by Jeph Loeb on X-Force (he ran the title through #61); first issue penciled by Adam Pollina, who became the book's signature artist for roughly the next three-and-a-half years.
Cannonball (Sam Guthrie) officially leaves X-Force and joins the X-Men — the first New Mutant or X-Force member ever to 'graduate' to the senior team.
Rictor departs the team in this issue, objecting to Cable's increased use of telepathic communication; his emotional farewell with Shatterstar is the first overt instance of Loeb deliberately coding their bond as romantic — the thread that writers would revisit for decades.
Caliban joins X-Force as a new member, replacing the departing Cannonball and Rictor.
Sunspot's powers are depicted as enhanced post-Age of Apocalypse, now including the ability to fly — an upgrade presented without in-story explanation.
The issue closes on a mystery cliffhanger: Siryn is shown being committed to the Weisman Institute for the Criminally Insane.
The cover is an homage to Uncanny X-Men #138 (Cyclops's departure) by way of New Mutants #99 (which used the same visual for Sunspot's exit), making X-Force #44 the third entry in an ongoing X-franchise tradition of the 'teammate walking away' cover.
The issue was reprinted in the French market in X-Force (Semic S.A., 1992 series) #26 (1996), and the storyline beginning here is collected in X-Force Epic Collection: Starting Over (2026, ISBN 978-1302969783).